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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

On Alpacas, Cats and Patience

Selling handmade accessories crocheted from
alpaca fiber in a small city in Vermont holds you to a high standard. Anywhere else, the handmade aspect alone would
be impressive, or the fact that I am the sole proprietor and entire staff of an
extremely small local business, or that all my items are one of a kind and
designed by me, and I sometimes, but not always, source from small local
businesses for my materials. I even walk the three mile round trip to market
and back each Saturday carrying a duffle bag full of wrist warmers and scarves,
some of which I just finished that morning. It doesn’t get more honest, natural
and down to earth than that.

But this being Vermont, I know the next question to
follow “do you live here?” and “do you crochet these yourself?” will be “are
these made of fiber from your own alpacas?” And my proud yesses will be
followed by a somewhat apologetic “no, but” followed by what I hope is an
earnest friendly explanation that hopefully redeems my fiber artisan cred,
because while, no, I do not own my own alpacas, or shear them, or spin or dye
my own fiber, I did once apprentice at a farm where I spent a lot of time with
alpacas, and even trained them, which has to count for something.

You may be wondering where I’m going with this, an
essay on the politics of the fiber world, or the importance of supporting small
local businesses, or how much I love doing the weekly Vermont Farmers Market, or
exactly why it is that I am not the
owner of an alpaca farm using my hands to care for the herd and process their
fiber instead of typing on a computer as the sun rises. But actually, it’s
about what came to me as I was lying in bed in the pre-dawn dark this morning
with my cat Henry standing on my chest and holding his nose to my nose with the
kind of trust not often found among felinekind, about what my time with alpacas
taught me that I can apply to life beyond the farm.

Alpacas, although they are a prey animal and find safety
and comfort in numbers, are a lot like cats, highly intelligent and extremely
resistant to training. You get to know pretty quickly that this is not an
animal whose will needs to be broken to get it to do your bidding. It will never
follow you around obediently like a dog or set aside its wild nature to work
for you like a horse. You won’t get
adoration or service from an alpaca. But
you can get a surprising amount of affection, and you can even get them to do
what you want them to do, provided it is also what they want to do. Which pretty
much makes them large fuzzy cats with very long necks.

I think my experience with cats helped me a lot when
I worked with alpacas. I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere with a bold imposing
approach. I would have to let them come to me on their own terms, that patience
and consistency were key. In the mind of an alpaca, anything sudden or
different can pose a threat, and words and gestures mean nothing. They can’t be
lured by treats or coerced with discipline or domination. The way to earn the
trust and acceptance of an alpaca is just by being there, alongside them, and
proving to them that nothing bad happens when you are around. And once they
accept you, and behave in their natural way, you can slowly direct those
behaviors towards what you want them to do. They don’t even notice that they are wearing a
harness and are attached to you by a leash because you’ve become part of their movements and their comfort zone and not
only is there no reason not to trust you, they even kind of like having you
around.

Henry has been with me for only 3 months and even
for a cat of great confidence, he has already accepted me with a depth of trust
I did not expect for several months, maybe even years. The more I leave it up
to him to figure out the boundaries of our relationship, the more permeable
those boundaries become. Cats love routine and an unchanging environment and I
am such a big part of that formula he now frets when I leave the house for a
few hours. Wherever I am in my apartment, he usually picks a nearby spot to
recline. This does not mean he wants to be approached and attended to, just that
having me where he can see me makes him feel good. And that makes me feel good too.

I have not always been a patient person, waiting for
things to come to me. I much prefer the active approach to life, reasoning that
any gesture, declaration or initiative is better than just sitting around doing
and saying nothing. But some situations call for the less is more approach, and
I am glad I have had experiences in which that approach proved so successful
and rewarding. I have been living on my own in this small city in Vermont for a
few months now, and I have found that people are accepting me not because I
have gone forth and cultivated friendships aggressively, but because I am
simply, consistently there. Vermonters are a lot like alpacas, they stick
together, do not respond to the heavy-handed approach, and they are slow to
trust, but once they do, you are one of them.

Lately, as I move through my days, I am remembering that
first day I went out into their enclosure on a snowy day in Maine with my
camera and walked among the alpacas I was going to be working with for the next
few months. I walked with even steps and made myself very quiet inside. I stood
motionless a lot of the time. They stopped running away to the furthest
distance they could manage and eventually forgot why they were trying to get
away from me. Then something magical happened. I was in the middle of a herd
surrounded by these magnificent creatures and moving among them as if I were
one of them. I could feel their strength and heat and hear their low humming
vocalizations. They were looking me in the eye, at first with misgiving, then with curiosity, and then with what was clearly approval. That day, I brought back some
amazing photographs, and so much more. And now I am getting that feeling again,
that things are on their way to me, and if I am just very quiet inside, magic
is going to happen.

4 comments:

I am thrilled to hear that magic is finding its way back into your heart and life. There is an individual in my city who brings two of his alpacas to the hospice and to nursing homes. Where they are greeted with so much love - by the staff, the residents and their families. Last year I went to the funeral of the mother of a dear friend. A funeral which was improved - exponentially - when Honeycomb the alpaca appeared. Judy's mama had loved Honeycomb when she met her at the hospice so, completely out of the blue, they appeared at the funeral. Simply lovely...

Thanks for sharing that lovely story, EC! Alpacas really are amazing creatures - they will give back exactly what you put into them. Treat them like dull aloof unapproachable farm animals and they will be just that. Show them you understand their capacity for intelligence, affection and loyalty, and that is what they will offer. I am not surprised to hear of them being used in a hospice setting. By the end of my time training them, I was able to walk one of them right into the kitchen to stand nearby while the people seated around the table enjoyed some social time! Always good to hear from you - if we don't exchange messages sooner, have a wonderful Christmas!

Such a beautiful post. I love how you weave together different subjects so that they all seem seamlessly intertwined. That's a gift, and you use it well.

I adore alpacas. Every fall I go up to an orchard where they let you pick apples and sell apple cider donuts and it re-awakens the New Englander in me who is missing a "real" autumn in LA. And I love cats too.

I am also bad at patience, but my cat certainly has taught me a lot about it. Thank you for such a gorgeous, thoughtful post.

Hey, thanks so much, Phoenix! I am finding that cats, alpacas and patience go together a lot more harmoniously as philosophical themes than in the reality of my current daily routine, in which my kitty attempts to eat any ball of alpaca fiber left unattended and my reaction is far from calm and restrained! Hope all is well with you.